


A Tale in Far-Off Westeros

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, characters and ships will be updated with each chapter, fairytale and folktale retellings, leading to some lesser known ones, srsly i've got like 6 of these planned already, starting with an old standard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-12-09 01:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20986538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: A series of retellings of fairy and folktales with the characters of ASOIAF. Becomes sometimes, happy endings are earned.





	1. Arya/Gendry, in Cinderella

There once lived a boy named Gendry. Gendry was what the less polite members of society would call a bastard. His father was infamously fond of the pleasures of the fairer sex, and had many children across the land. Gendry was born of a lowly tavern wench. When he turned six years, his mother became ill, she took him by the hand to where she recalled his father lived, and left him on the doorstep. 

His father had since married and had three legitimate children. His work took away from home so often it was though he was never there, and he seemed to spare it no care. Though his younger two step-siblings were kind and friendly, Gendry’s stepmother was cruel and spiteful, and her eldest son was worse still. Neither of them ever let him forget his place in the world.

They made him do nearly all the work around the house, and the rest of the time, sent him to assist at the blacksmith shop that was behind their land. He often returned home sweaty, exhausted, and covered in soot. Joffrey, his eldest stepbrother, sometimes called him Ash-boy. 

And this was his lot in life, for a time. 

One day, it was announced that the King of the land was giving a ball in hopes of finding a husband for his youngest daughter. 

None of the land had seen much of the girl. Rumor was that she was a bit wild, and her parents feared that being seen in public might render her an embarrassment. Yet still, the chance to meet and marry a princess…

“None of them will want to me marry me,” the girl, named Arya, complained. “All they’ll see is the fancy dress and title. That’s what they’ll want to marry.”

“At least you’ll get some say in it,” Meera told her. Meera was the daughter of a dear friend of Arya’s father, and the two girls were good friends. When they were younger they would often terrorize the household staff by dashing about the hallways playing at swords with sticks. “In the old days, your parents would pick someone for you and that would be it.”

“This is true,” Arya admitted, thinking. “I wonder if there is a way that I could meet all these people who would come without them knowing who I am.”

The two put their heads together, thinking. 

“Mother did suggest that I deliver the invitations to the households myself…” Arya mused, her mind racing. 

The preparations for their plan didn’t take much. Arya dressed in her usual attire of breeches and a woolen tunic, and her riding helmet, and Meera dressed in one of Arya’s traveling gowns, her curly hair tied back and hidden under a flowered hat.

“I look ridiculous,” the other girl notes, “Are you sure no one will notice?”

“It will be fine,” Arya insists. The two are of similar heights and builds, and both dark haired.

“None of them have seen me but from a far,” Arya adds.

And this was how the pair came by carriage to the home of Cersei Lannister, Gendry’s stepmother. 

He had just returned from the shop when Cersei answered the door. She was always good at being courteous when she felt it might benefit her. Gendry knew to hang back in the kitchen and make himself a shadow. 

The princess was done up in a pretty blue dress, but looks uncomfortable being fawned over. 

“I don’t think she’s used to this,” a voice tell him. Gendry jumps, he had barely noticed the other girl who had entered. She was dressed plainly, a companion or handmaiden of some kind likely. He offers her a chair in the kitchen, and pours them both a cup of tea. 

“Well, the rest of this family is well used to trying to ingratiate themselves with the highborns.”

The girl eyes him. She has nice eyes, he’s never seen them that shade of gray. 

“But not you?”

He shrugs, “Not my place, I know. They all know it too.”

She looks back out to the main dining room. Myrcella looks enchanted, and Tommen intimidated, but Joffrey and Cersei both look like they might eat the poor girl alive.

“Are you going to come to the ball?” the girl asks him. 

Gendry feels his shoulders slump. 

“Don’t think I’d be allowed.”

There’s a spark in her eye when she responds, 

“Well it’s a masquerade, so get a good enough mask and no one need ever know. “

She gestures out at the dinner table, where Cersei appears to be questioning the princess on the state of her eyebrows. She looks like she wishes deeply to flee. 

The girl looks more than a little amused. Her smile is genuine, not like one Gendry has seen on many women. 

“Especially if you find this sort of thing as funny as I do. I should go and rescue her though.”

It really would be nice, Gendry thinks, as the pair pack up and leave, swiftly, with the invitations given. It might be nice to get a glimpse of how his betters lived, even if he would never be one of them. 

Of course, Cersei has other ideas. 

“Well you can’t go of course,” she tells him, “Dressed like that and covered in ash. Besides, if you go, who will stay with Myrcella?”

As Myrcella was unlikely to marry the princess, she was being forced to stay home as well. When Gendry pointed out that Cersei herself was also unlikely to marry the princess, he had received a swift rap to the knuckles with a fireplace poker. It had been worth the sting, Gendry thought, especially when he spies Tommen nearly unable to hide his mirth from his spot on the floor. 

Cersei of course, dashed any remaining hope of Gendry sneaking out by spending the preceding weeks saving up all the polishing until the night of. 

“I want this finished by sunup, when we return.” she tells him, on the way out, with a flounce. 

Gendry is despondent. Then he feels a hand touch his shoulder and finds Myrcella and the cat Ser Pounce at her feet. 

“Go, I filled a tub, and put out some of Joffrey’s old things I’ve been altering. 

“But...I don’t have a mask..” he says dumbly.

“Oh don’t mind all that, and don’t mind the polishing either. Ser Pounce and I can handle it, and even if we can’t, I imagine Mother will be terribly hungover when she returns home, and likely won’t notice.”

Gendry reaches out and embraces the girl tightly. Very nearly a magical stepsister, she had become. 

“Perhaps you will catch the princess’s eye,” Myrcella tells him with a twinkle in her eye, “Mother would be so incensed she wouldn’t even notice if I ran off with that boy from Dorne after!”

He bathes quickly, drying off with haste. The clothes Myrcella has altered (and no easy feat, he has several inches on the boy) are finer than anything he’s ever owned. When he leaves the house, he barely recognizes himself in the looking glass. 

The sun is nearly set as he sets upon the road, and he hopes he can make the palace without being late. He still wonders at what he is going to do about his mask. 

Near the end of the lane in a glen is a huge willow tree. When Gendry passes under it, he feels something brush against his foot. Leaning down, he pets the head of Ser Pounce’s often companion, Lady Whiskers. She rolls back onto her haunches, and gazes up toward the sky. 

The autumn golden leaves have begun to fall, to swirl about in the wind in a manner that is not entirely worldly. The air begins to feel warm and thick, and in the distance, Gendry swears he even hears his mother singing. 

When the wind still, Gendry is startled to find that Lady Whiskers has been transformed, into a fine white steed. She wears a gilded bridle, and stuck through one loop, is a black eye-mask glinting with silver. 

He pulls himself into the saddle, and over his shoulder toward the glen, whispers “thank you”. 

*

Arya feels ridiculous. If the gown (lovely though it is) wasn’t enough, or the introduction, the entire crowd’s earnest pretending that she is not an awful dancer would seal it. She’s been stepping on feet all night and no one seems to care. 

It’s an utter farce their putting on, is all she can come up with. 

She is grateful for her and Meera’s little trick the other day (Meera, who is currently somewhere in the ballroom’s rafters with the rest of Arya’s siblings, likely having a good laugh at this all). And just as she suspected, no one seems to have noticed she doesn’t quite look like the girl who came to their doors those weeks ago, and she doubts somehow that it’s the mask. She’s already had the delight of immediately rejecting second dances with several of the more odious attendees. 

That golden-haired Lord of Smarm keeps trying too, being prodded by his mother, who has a face, even behind her mask, that looks as though she is constantly sucking lemons. Meera had said that talking to both of them had made her feel like she needed a bath. 

He’s pretty enough, Arya thinks. It’s good Sansa is already wed or she’d likely be mooning over him like a moron.

The utility of the masquerade is nearly lost on her. She has a good memory and recognizes nearly all of the men whose households she visited. They’re just masks, she thinks, there’s so much more to a person. 

The night begins to drag on, and soon Arya feels the desperate need for air. She slides off the arm of some Forrester boy who barely comes up to her shoulder, grabs a glass of wine, and slips onto a balcony. 

*

Clever girl, Gendry had though when he’d reached the palace in time for the royal introduction. The mask did nothing to hide that the princess was pretty clearly the girl he had drunk tea with in the ash-covered kitchen. She was in a gown the same silvery-gray as the moon and her hair was pinned up, but the smile was identical.

Maybe she felt as out of place as he. 

Even in his nice clothes, Gendry knows he’s out of place here. Even with the mask, he’s pretty sure everyone knows he doesn’t belong. His whole life, he’s felt like he has a banner labelled “bastard” taped to his forehead, and surrounded by all these highborns in fancy dress, it feels like it might even be glowing.

There’s a touch of danger too. He’s nearly been barrelled over by Cersei twice, though she seems deep enough in her cups she probably doesn’t recognize him. He thinks Tommen may have caught a glimpse of him as well, though he doubts the younger boy would care. He’s not too worried about Joffrey. Joffrey could never see past the end of his nose anyway. 

He dances a few times, with a series of girls who seem to blend into one, usually being cut short by him stepping on their feet. Finally, it gets to be too much, and he makes a break for the first window he sees. 

It’s only when he’s out gulping at the night air that he realizes that the balcony already has someone else using it as a respite. 

“Sorry,” he says to the princess, “It’s Arya right?”

“That’s what they said earlier tonight.”

“Any future princes found among the crowd?”

She laughs, but looks somewhat pained. 

“Only in their own heads.” she gestures down at the gown, and Gendry remembers how she had looked in her old riding clothes. “They’ll all be disappointed when this whole mummer’s show is done and I turn back into a pumpkin.”

Cersei stumbles by the window, and Gendry feels his throat go tight before she lumbers off somewhere else. 

“I’d take a pumpkin over half this crowd,” Gendry muses, “Pumpkins have a great many uses.”

Arya snorts, and shakes her head. She’s smiling though. She stands and extends a hand. 

“Better be getting back out there. Don’t believe I had the honor of stepping on your toes yet? Care to show your fortitude?”

And while the part of his brain that always wants to scream “not good enough” tries to win out, he takes her hand and follows.

They dance, well, if you can call it that. Gendry doesn’t know any of the steps, and honestly Arya barely seems to either. By the end of the song their feet must be black and blue. They smile, and laugh, and though Arya calls him “stupid” on more than one occasion, she does it with a grin.

And then the band changes the song, and they don’t separate.  
The night goes on, and Gendry finds he can’t remember being so happy. Even knowing it will all turn back into a pumpkin tomorrow. He wishes it wouldn’t. He wishes he could stay here. 

He will blame the glee for not seeing Cersei. 

(It will be noted in later times, how quickly it became apparent that the princess had begun to reject the favor of other men, and some will titter on about the breach of etiquette). 

She lurches along, nearly retching in the goblets of wine, but Gendry doesn’t even notice anything until she reaches up and rips off his mask .

Cersei sees him then. He can see every single movement as her eyes become a sneer and her lips twitch and open in what he can already tell become a drunken bellow. 

He drops Arya’s hands, turns and runs.

He doesn’t even stop for the horse. It doesn’t matter, Lady Whiskers could always find her own way home. 

By the time everyone else wanders home, somewhere between drunk and hungover, him and Myrcella have burned or hidden his clothes and are on the floor finishing up the polishing. His heart thrums with their every movement, and thanks every god he knows when no one says anything. 

It’s been three days, and Gendry’s just beginning to think that things might be going back to normal. Even if he’s still rather haunted by a pair of storm gray eyes. 

Then his day’s drudgery (scrubbing the ashes out of the stove today) is interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats.  
Cersei hollars at him to answer the door. When he does, Lady Whiskers runs past his feet. 

“I swore when we left she was a horse.”

He looks up, and she’s standing right in front of him. She’s in trousers again, and a simple braid, though she is clean, and holding herself with confidence. He is dimly aware of the carriage behind her, but doesn’t genuinely acknowledge it. 

She reaches and hands him the mask.

“You dropped this.”

He takes it. He hadn’t even given it any thought. 

“How’d you know where to come?”

Arya’s face twists into a bizarre grin. 

“I’m not stupid. I can see past a mask. Why do you think I bothered with the costume switch?”

He hears Cersei fussing behind him, she must be wondering what’s going on to keep him. 

Arya looks him up and down. He’s still covered in soot from the stove. 

“This your idea of a pumpkin the day after?” she asks, head cocked.

He feels a laugh burst out of his throat. It keeps going. And when Arya leans forward to kiss him, it just keeps coming. 

(Watching Arya deal with Cersei afterwards is just the cherry on top)

(He insists that they hang back and help Myrcella out her window that night, he owes her that at least)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This borrows pretty heavily from the recent Christopher Wheeldon choreographed production of the ballet Cinderella- it's my absolute favorite take on the story (rather unsentimental and quite grounded), and I highly recommend it (it's in SF next year, and the Dutch Ballet's version is available on DVD)


	2. Bran/Meera, in Tam Lin

There was a wood known as the Wolfswood, and no one came or went. For the story went, a child of the fae dwelled within. 

Meera Reed paid these stories no heed, donned her green cloak, and walked within. For her father was sworn to the Lord of Winterfell, and the woods might as well be her home. She knew the bogs, she knew the stream. The Wolfswood should be no different. 

She came deep in the Wolfswood, and sat beside a well. Into the well, was carved the image of a horse, and no one else in sight. The meadow spread out around her, the trees enveloping it in silence.

From the ground beside the well grew a double-bloomed blue rose, just barely a sprout. She plucked it between her fingers and with a start, a young man appeared before her. 

“Why are you here so deep in the wood, why did you pluck the rose?” He asks of her. 

Her voice is proud, and firm, when she responds, “My father is sworn to Winterfell, I have as much right to be here as anyone.”

“Winterfell?” he speaks, “It still stands then. I wonder if anyone still remembers.”

Meera narrows her eyes.

“You’re Brandon Stark,” she whispers, “I saw you once, before, when my father went to swear fealty”

He smiles in response

“I remember. You rode a palomino and had snow in your hair. You never came inside.”

She wouldn’t have. Other girls sewed, or read books by the fire, but Meera was a maiden of the meadows and trees. 

“You wouldn’t come down from the apple tree. Your mother despaired,” she recalls. 

There’s a moment, and something between them shifts. 

“I was a child of ten then,” he says. He reaches out and takes her pale, white hand. His face is only a breath away from hers.

“But I’m not a child now.”

With a whisper as soft as the wind, they are no longer divided.

They lay down together among the heather, none but the leaves on the tree to bear witness. 

When Meera awakens, sun-kissed and limbs languid, and runs back to her father’s home, it may well have been a dream.

The weeks continued, and Meera remains pale and wane. As the moon turns, she grows listless. All the rooms in her father’s home seem huge, and empty. 

One night, over a seafood stew, rendering her quite green, a gray haired knight spoke, 

“I do hope you don’t lay the blame on our feet.”

Hastily, her father pulls her aside. 

“My dear girl, I fear you may be with child.”

Meera admits, 

“I think I may be, but it’s not the work of anyone in this castle. I shall not give anyone his name, for I fear he may be of the fae.”

That night she ties her hair, and dons her cloak, and sets out for the wood. 

She sees the well, and the stead, and settles among the flowers below. 

Her fingers found the yellow bloom, whispered about in the halls. She pauses, and tosses it aside, before finding again, the double blue rose.

And again, Bran Stark appears before her. 

“Why-” he starts, before his gaze spies the yellow bloom at Meera’s feet. 

She takes his hand, and places it upon her stomach.

“Tell me true, Brandon Stark, are you a human still, or a child of the fae?”

He sighs, and sits down by her side. 

“I was a human born, and at least I think I still am.”

Meera looks at him, trying to remember before. 

“You had a fever, they said.”

He nods, “Afterwards, it was hard for me to walk, I couldn’t go very far without my cane. You said I wouldn’t come down from the tree. I wouldn’t, because once I was up, it was hard to come down. So I rode as much as I could. My father’s ward took me hunting one day. Then the wind began to blow, and I felt my eyes growing heavier, and I fell straight from my saddle.”

“They only ever found your horse,” Meera adds. 

“The children of the fae kept me, I have lived among these hills. I cannot leave, I cannot walk out of the Wolfswood anymore than I could have before. And after seven years, they have come to pay their tribute to the Night King, and I fear that that will be me.”

“I will not raise a bastard,” Meera said with resolution, “Tell me what I may do.”

“Tomorrow night is the autumn equinox. That is the night the children ride for the far north, over the crossing towards the fork. That is your only chance.”

“But if there are many of them riding,” Meera asks, “How will I know you?”

“The first will ride black steeds, stand at the crossing and let them pass. The second will ride brown horses, let them pass as well. When the third come, I will be on a mount of milk-white. They will allow to ride the side closest to Winterfell, as I was it’s lord’s son. When I pass, grab my hand and pull me from my horse.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Meera says, falteringly. 

“They will turn me with their magic,” Bran says gravely, “I will become a wolf in your arms, then a bird. Hold me tight either way. No matter what they change me, do not let me go, do not let me pass. After the rest go by, drop with me into the waters of the crossing, and I will become a man again in your arms.”

He squeezes her hands and presses them to his chest. 

“Cover me with your cloak, and pull me out, and I’ll be your child’s father.”

The night that came was foggy and dark. But in its depth, did Meera don her cloak and ride to the Crossing, it’s waters still below the stones.

When the witching hour came, she heard the thundering of hooves. She was glad of that, glad of the earthly noise. 

The huge black stallion passed by first, it’s rider a blur in the foggy night air. Then came the brown, galloping over the bridge so fast it made it shake. 

Then finally came the milk-white steed. Meera steeled herself, reached up and grabbed it’s rider’s ungloved hands, and pulled him from the saddle.

As she held him tight, she heard a voice cackle, 

“One among us has been won”

He turned in her arms, first a wolf that growled, then a bird that fought and clawed. She held him tight still, and when the last rider passed, kicked off the shore and into the water. 

And though at one point he felt slippery as an eel, soon he was human again, though naked as the day he was named. 

Human enough to be embarrassed when she pulled him upon the shore and wrapped him in her cloak. 

The inhuman cackle echoes in the autumn air, making Meera shiver. 

“We should make our way to my father’s house before you catch cold.”

She pulls him to his feet. He rests his head on her shoulder. 

“My legs are weaker than ever,” he whispers, “You might end up dragging me most of the way.”

Meera laughs, pushing her wet curls from her face.

“Good thing I rode most of the way.”

She wraps an arm around him, and presses a kiss to his head. 

“You know, we really shouldn’t turn up in the middle of the night and wake everyone,” she says, mischievously. 

Bran glances up at the moon, nearly full, and shining bright, even through the fog. 

“I’m really not looking forward to the conversation we’re going to have to have when we get there”.

“Speak for yourself,” Meera says, touching her stomach with one hand, “I’m the one who has to explain this.”

Bran turns pink. It is a very human reaction.

“And really,” Meera continues, “Fae aside, it really is a rather lovely night.”

And if her horse minded the rest, it did not show it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are about 1600 version of the ballad of Tam Lin, but [this](https://www.tam-lin.org/versions/39I.html) is the version I first read in a book somewhere. 
> 
> Next up is either Sansa and Tyrion in Prunella or Sam and Gilly in Donkeyskin.


	3. Sansa/Tyrion, as Prunella

Once there was a girl named Sansa, who lived outside a lemon orchard. Every day after school, she would walk home and pick a lemon to bring home to the cook. The cook would cut it into Sansa’s tea, or make lemon candy, or mix it with custard to fill cakes. 

The orchard belonged to the famously cruel Lady Lannister. Sansa did not know she was doing wrong by picking the fruit, but when Cersei one day watched the girl picking a lemon off her tree, she became enraged. The next day, when she stopped to pick her treat, Cersei had her men seize the child.

“So it’s a thief we have,” Cersei told her when she was brought to her. 

Sansa was an innocent girl, guileless and sweet, and when accused, she wept. She swore she had no idea what she had done was wrong, and that she would never do it again, but still, Cersei persisted. She brought the girl inside her keep and refused to let her leave, her every exit guarded. 

As the years went by, Sansa grew into a great beauty. This in itself stoked Cersei’s anger against her, as she herself had once been young and beautiful, and seeing these attributes in other women often incited her anger. Sansa had been well-raised, and if asked she would have said Cersei was still beautiful. Now all she saw was the ugliness in her heart. 

One day, Cersei sent Sansa with a basket to fetch water from the well. The girl looked down at the basket, perplexed. 

“But…”

Cersei slapped her. 

“Do as I say girl, or else you may find this impertinence to be your last.”

When she reached the well, Sansa tried to fill it, but the water just flowed through the reeds. She tried and tried, but the water would not hold. Finally, holding the water-logged basket, Sansa slumped against the well and felt the tears welling up in her eyes begin to fall. 

“Sansa, why are you crying?”

She jumps. She hasn’t heard someone call her kindly by name in some time. The voice is from a rather small man, who might have been handsome if he hadn’t been carrying the weight of many hard years, 

“Who are you?” she asks, shocked, “And how do you know my name?”

“I am Tyrion, brother of Cersei Lannister. She has been going on and on about her plans to get rid of you permanently. I feel that giving you impossible tasks is the way she will justify it. And you deserve to know the danger you may face.”

“Her reasons don’t matter,” Sansa insisted, looking down at the basket. “I still can’t fill this with water.” 

Tyrion stops to contemplate this for a moment. 

“If I help you fill it, will you give me a kiss?”

Sansa considers, but quickly. 

“No, I would never kiss a Lannister.”

Tyrion shrugs, “Fair enough.”

And then, after rustling around the clearing for a bit, he finds a large leaf,which he uses to line the bottom of the basket carefully before filling it with water and handing it back to Sansa. 

“Carry it back carefully.”

When Sansa places the full basket on the table, Cersei goes white with rage, but she cannot repute her. 

The next day, she calls the girl down again. She gives her a sack of wheat, and says, 

“I’m going out for a bit. Make this grain into bread. If you do it by the time I return, perhaps I may not kill you.”

The wheat she gave Sansa hasn’t even been ground. She tries weakly to begin to grind it into flour, but it’s slow going. When she has been working for what feels like hours and has barely produced a half cup of flour, she puts her hands in her face, hopeless. 

She feels a hand reach out and touch her arm, comfortingly. 

“Don’t cry Sansa, “ he pauses, “I think I can help you. Would you kiss me to help you?”

“I would never kiss a brother of hers. “

Tyrion shrugs her off, and then takes the sack of grain and leads her out the back of the keep. 

“There’s enough for three loaves here, if you had time to grind it. I doubt any sister of mine would know that.”

And the bakery he walks her to seems happy enough to trade the wheat for only two loaves. 

Tyrion makes off with one, but not before cutting Sansa and himself slices, with butter and honey. 

The other loaf is warming in the oven when Cersei returns. Her face pinches tight, like she’d eaten one of her own lemons whole, and she mutters to herself again. 

“That little monster must have helped you.”

Sansa feels a twinge of sympathy. He may have been a Lannister, but Tyrion did not seem like a monster to her.

The next day, she called Sansa down again, and told her. 

“Go to my son, who lives across the valley, he will give you a casket, you must bring it back to me.”

She knew her son was even crueler than her, and the only way he would allow Sansa to leave would be inside that very casket. 

Sansa knew none of this, and despite her captivity, she did not suspect a thing. 

She passes Tyrion on the way off the estate, but he stops her, 

“Sansa, where are you going.”

“I’m going to fetch something from Cersei’s son, Perhaps I’ll take the opportunity and run away.”

Tyrion’s blood freezes in his veins. 

“My dear, she is sending you into a death trap.”

Sansa says nothing, but sighs, She really should have known better. 

Quickly, Tyrion plies her with a pack full of seemingly random objects.

“When you come to the river, give this net to the fisherman. My dearest sister has been forcing him to catch fish with his bare hands. Then, you’ll come to a ditch beside a field. In that field grow blue roses, and the girl at the center is harvesting them by hand. Give her the gloves. Lastly you will find a wolf chained to a wall. Use the key to let her free, and she shouldn’t attack you. As long as you reach Joffrey’s house by sunset, he shouldn’t be inside. Go in through the servant’s entrance, and find the casket in a cabinet close to the ground. Get it, and leave, and you should be able to make it back fine. 

When he finishes, Sansa nods softly, taking his instructions in.

“Perhaps a kiss for luck?”

And again, Sansa says no, though this time she thinks about it longer. 

She throws the pack over one shoulder and begins on her way, kicking herself mentally for not having seen this coming. 

The river comes first. The fisherman is gaunt, his clothes patched. Clearly catching his fish is not working with just his hands. She gives him the net, as instructed. 

The girl among the brambles of the blue roses is beautiful. Sansa tosses her the gloves, and she pulls them over her pale white hands.

When she is far enough west to see Joffrey’s house in the distance, the sun is nearly set, but Sansa still stops when she sees the wolf. 

She is a wild creature, that is easy to see, but the iron around her neck weighs her down. She looks as though she might as well be trapped in a cage surrounded on all sides.

When the key turns, the metal snaps free, and the wolf howls in appreciation.

The sun is nearly all gone by the time she reaches the house in the west. Realizing how close she is to Cersei’s son returning, she rifles through the cabinets in the kitchen trying to find the casket. When she finally does, she grabs it and run, suddenly aware of the pounding of feet and the deep man’s voice yelling after her. 

She ran past the rose patch, and the voice behind her yelled, 

“Stop her, she’s a thief!”

But the girl in the rose patch did not move.

“I will not, for she gave me gloves to save me from the thorns!”

When she crossed the river, it called out to the fisherman, 

“Catch the thief, drown her!”

“I will not, for you would have me starve without my net!”

She runs to the front door of her mistress’s house, and finds the woman filled with rage, before she even sees Sansa coming. Sansa feels her heart break when she realizes Cersei is currently raging at Tyrion rather than her. 

He is her brother, Sansa thinks, and she is no kinder to him than she was to her captive. 

Cersei’s attention is soon turned, and she is as surprised as furious to see Sansa returning with the casket, which she flings upon the ground before them.

Sansa’s fear of her anger soon doubles when she realizes she can still hear the hollars of Cersei’s son tailing her. His yells get closer and closer behind

His yells, and something else as well. 

When Sansa recognizes the wolf’s howls for what they are, she grabs Tyrion by the hand and pulls him along behind her, away from Cersei’s home, away from the sounds of the freed wild beast taking her revenge on those who had imprisoned her. 

Suddenly, Sansa realized she was free. 

She was free, and feeling the touch of Tyrion’s hand in hers, she was overcome by the memory of the kindnesses he had shown her. 

“My lady,” he asks, “Where shall you go now?”

With no prompting at all, she leans down and kisses him.

“I don’t know,” she admits, “But I’d like not to go alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prunella's an Italian fairy tale, and far too little known](https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/lfb/gy/gyfb37.htm)


End file.
